The present invention relates to a process for accurate alignment of an axis of an optical communication fiber.
An axis alignment of an optical fiber requires an accurate axis alignment in splicing with small loss, in particular, in the case of a single mode optical fiber. A prior axis alignment which is called a power monitor method is shown in FIG. 1, in which the numeral 1 is a light source, 2 and 4 are optical fibers to be spliced, 3 is a splicer, 5 is a detector, and 5a is a meter for indicating the output level of the detector 5. In FIG. 1, the light generated by the light source 1 passes the whole length of the optical fibers 2 and 4, and the splicer 3 adjusts the relative position of the optical fibers 2 and 4 finely so that the maximum optical power is applied to the optical fiber 4. The reception of the optical power in the fiber 4 is accomplished by the detector 5 which is located at the far end of the fiber 4. Therefore, the information obtained by the detector 5 must be returned to the splicer 3 for the fine adjustment of the splicing and therefore, the splicing operation is complicated.
Further, the system of FIG. 1 cannot be used in splicing optical fibers for a digital regenerative transmission system, since the amplitude information of a light signal is lost in a repeater, which regenerates input thereto signal.
Further, when a test signal cannot be applied to one of the ends of the optical fiber, the method of FIG. 1 can not be used.